Squeaker
Squeaker was a male voorpak, on loan from the Naboo Zoo to the Jedi Temple on the planet Coruscant. The voorpak was introduced to the school as a means of teaching students responsibility in caring for a pet, as well as learning about the biology and habits of the species. Students at the academy were encouraged to care for Squeaker at the academy’s care center, feeding him a preferred diet of live insects and keeping his soft fur clean. Squeaker quickly proved popular with most of the Temple’s students, but suffered at the hands of two school bullies who tortured the creature by taking him for unauthorized “walks” and stuffing him in a school locker. Despite the abuse he suffered, he was allowed to return to the next school year, but was used as part of a prank that resulted in hundreds of clones of him being set loose at a school talent show. Background Physical appearance Squeaker was small and had a coat of soft orange and white fur. Personality Squeaker did not actually answer to the name Squeaker, but was responsive to cute noises. He was known to puff up and hiss when angry, but otherwise was largely passive and became somewhat worn down and weary following his abuse at the hands Severus Umbridge and Vernon Dudley. He possessed some intelligence, as he was able to fly a cruiser to a secret chamber and learn tricks. He also cared for those took care of him and gave him treats. His favorite food was live insects. Appearances Ronald Potter and the Gamorrean from Coruscant Squeaker was a male voorpak, small, fuzzy creature native to the Mid Rim planet Naboo. Approximately 200 years before the Battle of Yavin, he was temporarily on loan from the Naboo Zoo to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, the Galactic Republic’s capital planet, as a class pet, arriving with the other students at the beginning of the school year. A number of Padawans trained here under Jedi Master Yoda and various other Jedi, including Mr. Maulpres and Principal Antilles. Annabeth Skywalker, a female Human student in attendance at the Temple, was excited about caring for Squeaker, as she had once visited Naboo and saw a number of voorpaks. Squeaker delighted the students at the academy, who enjoyed taking care of him, and an article was written about him in the school newspaper, The Padawan Observer. The article described the class pet program, started by Annabeth, which offered the opportunity to study Squeaker’s behavior and mannerisms, while also learning about the diets and natural habitats of voorpaks. Annabeth was often assisted in caring for the voorpak by Ronald Potter, a second-year student with something of a crush on her. Ronald became fond of the voorpak despite being scared of the insects which made up Squeaker’s diet. Vernon Dudley and Severus Umbridge, two Zabrak bullies in the same class as Annabeth and Ronald, saw Squeaker merely as an opportunity for amusement. These two had often bullied other students at the academy, and extended their bullying to this defenseless animal. In the first semester of the school year, following a field trip to the snow-covered Outer Rim planet Hoth, they poked at him with a pencil, causing him to hiss and puff out his fur, and threatened to hide him in someone’s locker. In the second semester, Ronald, who had been struggling with his friendships, joined the two Zabraks while they took Squeaker for a “walk,” placing him on a leash and yanking him around, despite it being against class rules to take him out of the care center. While Ronald did not actively bully the creature, he did nothing to stop it. Annabeth and Ammon Kendels, a Human male that had also been one of Ronald’s friends, chastised them for having Squeaker out, but to no effect. Soon afterward, The Padawan Observer reported that Squeaker had gone missing. Ronald was suspected, but he was not the culprit. He suggested that Annabeth might have done it, given how much she much liked Squeaker. Despite his anger and dismay, Ronald became disillusioned with the two bullies, whom he suspected did not really care about his feelings. With Squeaker having been missing for around a week, he decided to try to rescue the voorpak. Using a Force power he sensed a disturbance in Vernon’s locker and discovered that the two bullies had made good on their threat, stuffing Squeaker in the locker. Fortunately, he knew Vernon’s combination and was able to rescue the hungry voorpak, but Annabeth discovered him with the creature and blamed him for what had happened. Ronald, not willing to argue with her, went to tell Master Yoda what had happened, taking the blame for the theft himself. Yoda planned on making him write a letter of apology to the Naboo Zoo, though he felt that Yoda may have realized that there was someone else involved. Despite this, both Vernon and Severus suspected Ronald of reporting them. At the end of the semester, Yoda placed both Vernon and Severus on academic suspension for the first semester of the next year because of the theft of Squeaker. However, Ronald suspected that Yoda may have used the Force to figure out what had happened. Right before Squeaker could be transported to the Naboo Zoo, he got wind of Ronald Potter and Ammon Kendels in danger in the basement. He escaped his cage, then crawled aboard a small ship. Putting his antennas to good use, Squeaker miraculously flew the ship down the hallway and into the basement, using a grenade to force through and into it. Once at the bottom, he attempted a rescue, flying low with the boarding ramp lowered. As Ronald clashed with Darth Vadermort, he saw the ship approaching. Disengaging from the Sith Lord, he grabbed Annabeth and Ammon and leaped on board the cruiser. The ramp closed, and the ship accelerated. As the cruiser streaked up the chute, Vadermort was left fuming downstairs. Ronald Potter and the Labyrinth of Doom The following school year, Squeaker was again loaned out to the Jedi Temple after the class visited the Naboo Zoo for a field trip. Annabeth was still fond of the creature and when Vernon saw her carrying him in one of the school’s hallways, he teased her about her “new pet,” which was actually a reference to Ronald, who was walking with her at the time. Lily, a new student who was also with Vernon, was not impressed by this teasing and asked Severus why his friend was so mean. Ronald continued spending time with the voorpak and felt that it was warming up to him and that it didn’t have anything to do with the extra treats he had been feeding him. A bit later that year, Ronald was caring for Squeaker when he found that each time he left the voorpak in his cage, one of his friends would run up to him to inform him that it had escaped and they had seen it elsewhere in the school. He was given a lecture regarding keeping a better eye on Squeaker by his personal Jedi Master, Mr. Maulpres, who was not willing to listen to his explanation. Though Ronald did not know it at the time, the voorpaks in question were actually clones of Squeaker. This became clear when he and Annabeth attempted to perform a talent act with Squeaker during the school’s talent show. Though they had worked hard training the voorpak and expected a smooth act, he would not respond to any of their commands such as “jump” or “roll over” and then, to their great embarrassment, leaped onto Annabeth and urinated on her head. As Ronald apologized to Annabeth, he spotted a second voorpak interfering with Severus’ hula hoop act. The auditorium was soon overrun with clones and Severus’ arm was broken during the melee. Annabeth later took the clones with her to the Naboo Zoo during her spring break, though they were not able to accept them all. She gave all but one of the remaining to a Voorpak Rescue Organization, keeping the last as her personal pet. It was later revealed that Vernon Dudley and Draco Goyle, a fellow student who styled himself as a politician, were responsible for the pranks, part of their continued effort to humiliate Ronald. Behind the Scenes Squeaker first appeared in Ronald Potter and the Gamorrean from Coruscant and was again featured in Ronald Potter and the Labyrinth of Doom. He and his clones are the only pets featured within the series and are among other pet voorpaks within the Star Wars franchise, such as Sanani, Taezii, and Dotty. The character was inspired in part by author D. Isaac Thomas’ experience with salamanders at home that ate insects and, like Ronald Potter, he has something of an insect phobia. Despite the bullying suffered by Squeaker, Thomas confirmed that one or more school pets would be featured in the third book in the series, Ronald Potter and the Labyrinth of Doom. The school pet in question turned out to be Squeaker himself, who made a return appearance to the school. Category:Aliens Category:Heroes Category:Characters Category:Males Category:Ronald Potter characters Category:Sequel characters Category:Creatures Category:D.I.T. characters